Those who follow the blog maybe remember that recently I've published a couple of stories by the Australian writer and philosopher Boris Glikman. Boris has written short tales based on fantastic and surreal paintings by remarkable artists as Michael Cheval, Vladimir Kush and others. I also published a story as a diary which runs parallel with works by the Japanese painter Tetsuya Ishida.

Some time ago, Boris was interested in any of his works was translated into the language of the Gomeran whistle language.

'Gomeran whistle', also known as el silbo ('the whistle'), is a traditional language spoken by inhabitants of La Gomera in the Canary Islands to communicate across the deep ravines and narrow valleys (gullies). It was declared as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2009.

As with other whistled forms of non-tonal languages, the Silbo works by retaining approximately the articulation of ordinary speech, so "the timbre variations of speech appear in the guise of pitch variations" (Busnel and Classe: v). The language is a whistled form of a dialect of Spanish.

Because the interest expressed by Boris, I contacted the Asociación Cultural y de Investigación de Silbo Canario "Cultural and Research Association on Canary Whistle "Hautacuperche". Through Joel Diaz Herrera, they contacted me to accept the proposal to record a text in Silbo. I sent them the translation of a short story that Boris selected, and I decided to post on the blog the original story and their translations into Spanish and whistled language.

The version in Silbo has been recorded by the Whistler Guillermo Molina.

A young man, in the full flower of his youth, comes across very lengthy, complicated and intricate instructions on how to construct an apparatus of some kind. He becomes intrigued and then obsessed by these instructions and devotes all of his hours to the building of this machine, of whose function and purpose he is completely ignorant and wants desperately to find out. Years go by, as he painstakingly follows each step of the seemingly endless instructions, but he is not concerned at all by the passing of time, so dedicated is he to his task. And in any case, he is convinced that once the machine is completed, all of the work and the time he had spent on it will be retrospectively justified and his actions will gain the meaning that they presently lack.And so, decades after beginning the construction, the last component is ready to be put into its place. All that is needed to do is to fasten it with the last bolt and the apparatus will be complete. As he is doing so, he realises he has become an old man and that he is now living out the final moments of his life. As his vision grows dim, he sees for the very first time that the apparatus he has spent all of his life building is a coffin and that nothing remains for him to do but to place himself in it for all eternity.

For those interested in deepen about this issue, here you have a couple of videos: First, the Whistle told by whistlers, a short by Manuel Mora Morales. Another short by Discovery Channel, and abother one of the Canary Islands Government (Spanish and English versions), made in 2008 by Juan Ramon Hernandez and David Baute, with information about the Island, its people and the Whistle.

I have known about Silbo for a long time, as I have always been interested in languages and also because I read very widely. I go through literally hundreds of non-fiction books each year, full of all kinds of information. So it was inevitable that I would have found out about Silbo sooner or late. I also appreciated the kind help of the Association to make all of this possible.

Thank you very much for this Javier! You have done a simply magnificent job in presenting my story and in giving an introduction to the whistling language of Gomera! I will be sure to share this with my friends around the world!

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